


A Certain Kind of Magnetism

by chaoticallyclev



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 5 Times, M/M, Magnets, Ridiculousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-12
Updated: 2014-05-12
Packaged: 2018-01-24 11:19:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1603262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaoticallyclev/pseuds/chaoticallyclev
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four times Steve and Bucky exchanged notes using magnets (and one time that still happened)</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Certain Kind of Magnetism

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Thanks to Sarah for reading this over and to V (even though she’s the worst) for putting up with me babbling about magnets all the time and also trying out the thing ~for science. I would say I might shut up about it now but. 
> 
> Anyway, here is a bit of self-indulgent fluff with a stupid title because what else was I going to do with my weekend!

Steve feels bad about it the first time, after he’s already left the apartment and the worry hits him too late to do anything about it now. He’s already on his second mile before the thought that sticking his note to Bucky’s arm with a magnet might not be okay occurs to him.

He’s not always sure how to act around Bucky still, even after a year of trial and error. Mostly error, if he’s honest. But one thing they’d figured out worked for them was the notes.

Early on, Bucky seemed more settled if knew where Steve would be, when he’d get back, but he didn’t always want to see Steve, talk to him to find out, so Steve started leaving notes. He didn’t mind. Bucky had always been big on letting each other know where they were going, when to expect them back. He’d joked that it was so he’d know when to go looking for alleys to pull Steve out of, but the way his jaw clenched on the words backed them up more than the crooked smile he forced out after them.

So when Steve gave up on sleep this morning, feeling full of restless energy and deciding he needed to run, he grabbed for a pen. Bucky was still breathing deep and even, and Steve bet he wasn’t going to wake up for a while still. A quick search through the nightstand failed to turn up any Post-Its and Steve frowned when he remembered they’d ran out the other day. Tearing out a blank sheet from his sketchbook instead, he scribbled out a quick note-- _’gone running, Mall route, back by 8’_ \-- and then had to figure out where to put it. Steve hadn’t forgotten Bucky’s days of grumping from the last time he’d just left a note on the nightstand and the breeze knocked it off. They had picked up the Post-Its after that.

Steve ran through his options for a minute before he settled on the magnetic travel checkers game Sam had picked up on one of their road trips months ago. Hesitating for a second, Steve finally fishes out three little checkers and uses them to fix the note to Bucky’s upper arm. Bucky lets out a little snore but doesn’t even twitch, so Steve heads out.

He ends up spending most of the remainder of his run worrying that overstepped some sort of boundary. Post-It notes on the forehead were fine, though, he reasons.

Steve comes home to a crudely drawn dick on the back of his note stuck to the outside of his shield with the same magnets, but Bucky looks pretty amused from his place on the couch, so Steve guesses it was okay.

***

Bucky tags along to Sam’s meetings at the VA sometimes, and Sam almost always ends up back at Steve’s place with him afterwards, so Steve expects them both when he gets home from New York.

Steve catches Bucky dozing on the couch mid-afternoon-- the sight rare enough in itself, but he’s sacked out with his head resting on Sam’s thigh. Sam looks the closest to terrified Steve’s ever seen him outside of a true life or death situation, but he still seems pretty damn amused by the situation, judging by the smirk tugging at his lips.

Steve raises his eyebrows questioningly and Sam nods at the TV where the title screen of _Winnie the Pooh_ is frozen in place, theme music going in loop.

“Terrifying assassin of the past century insists on watching _Winnie the Pooh_ and then passes out on me before we even get to Tigger,” Sam tuts disapprovingly.

Putting his stuff away in the hall closet, Steve lets out a quiet snort of laughter.

“He’s _drooling_ on my pants, Steve.”

“Yeah, he does that,” Steve says, grinning. Bucky lets out a soft snore, chest shaking a bit on the inhale. Steve watches the movement for a few more breaths, feeling warmth spreading in his own chest.

When he looks up, Sam is staring at him. “You should see your face right now. It’s disgusting.”

Steve rolls his eyes. Then he gets an idea. “Uh-huh. Just stay there.”

“Oh, I’m not moving. I want to, but my leg’s dead at this point and I don’t want to find out if your boy wakes up stabbing.” Sam yells it after him in a loud whisper.

Steve dashes into the bedroom and grabs his sketchbook and some pencils before returning, dragging the arm chair from its place to a spot more squarely in front of the couch.

“Nah, he’s past that. Besides, I think he likes you,” Steve says cheekily, settling into the armchair.

“Can he like me with a little bit less…drool involved? Oh no, are you _drawing_ this? Can’t you just take a picture to immortalize the shame like everyone else?”

Steve shifts his hips up to free his phone from his pocket and does just that. “Still drawing it.”

Sam sighs, defeated. “At least put something else on the TV.”

“Getting tired of Pooh Bear?”

“Got tired of Pooh Bear after my nephew’s obsession last summer, but I got especially tired of him after hearing this damn song on loop for the past 30 minutes.”

Steve relents, retrieving the remote from where it had probably fallen on the floor when Sam tried to reach for it last and handing it over. He doesn’t look over to see what Sam settles on watching, guesses it’s a sports channel from the low wash of voices in that familiar cadence, but just keeps focusing on the lines on the paper before him.

He finishes up a rough sketch quickly enough, forcing himself to leave it that way, and writes ‘ _Sam says you drool too_ ’ beneath the picture. It’s not even a real argument, but Bucky had stubbornly insisted that Steve had caused the wet spot on his t-shirt himself the other day, even though it was right in the middle of his chest. He rips the page out carefully, carrying it with him when he heads to the kitchen to pull a magnet off the fridge.

Sticking both the magnet and the picture to Bucky’s arm just right takes up enough of Steve’s focus that he doesn’t notice the change in Bucky’s breathing until his eyes are blinking open.

“Steve? Did you just stick a magnet on my arm again?” Bucky’s voice croaks a bit and he breaks off into a yawn before he finishes the last syllable.

“Well. Not just a magnet.” Steve admits.

Sam’s craning his neck to get a good look at the picture. “Aw man, did you have to bring me into this?”

Bucky’s eyes had started to slip shut, but they snap back open when Sam speaks, and Bucky realizes his head’s pillowed on someone who isn’t Steve. He sits up slowly, rubbing at his face as he does so. “Sam?”

“Yes?” Sam responded.

“I think I drooled on your pants. Sorry.”

“It’s cool,” Sam shrugs, like he hadn’t been complaining about it not that long ago. “But hey, you missed out on Tigger, man. So why don’t you and Steve start that up again while I see myself out?”

Sam eases himself up off the couch, face screwing up as the blood starts flowing back to his leg. He turns to Steve and points. “That picture better not find its way anywhere but on that phone.”

“Too late. Natasha said it was cute, by the way.”

Sam shuts the door firmly behind him but Steve could still hear him muttering out in the hall.

Bucky has tugged the picture free, studying it while he wipes the last of the sleep from his eyes. Finally, he says, “Yeah, well, you used to snore like a freight train.”

“You got a little.” Steve motions to a spot on his own chin, smiling when Bucky grumpily wipes at his.

“Jerk, get over here and start the damn movie.”

Steve slides into the spot Sam vacated, ducking in to brush a kiss against Bucky’s temple.

Steve doesn’t know if Bucky stays awake until they get to Tigger this time because he nods off himself, leaning against Bucky’s shoulder.

***

Their fridge is covered in an assortment of magnets now. Steve hadn’t known there was Captain America inspired magnets before Sam had stuck a set up there one day. He doesn’t know who found the googly eyes, but Bucky got a kick out of them. The collection just keeps growing.

The hippo, lion, monkey, and zebra from a zoo set secure a reminder that _‘we need MILK and more of your gross hair gel’_ to the outside of Steve’s shield are also new. They’re cute; he just wishes he’d noticed them and the note before he’d rode over to Sam’s place with his shield strapped to his back.

Sam spots it first and laughs for a good while before he’ll even tell Steve what’s funny.

“Oh look, it’s already on Twitter!”

Steve gets a lot of hair gel in the mail that month and all of it is pretty gross.

***

Steve gets called away for a mission late at night and decides not to wake Bucky-- he hasn’t been sleeping great lately and Steve should be back by the afternoon. So he leaves a note with basic details and fixes it to Bucky’s upper arm with a kiss magnet, feeling ridiculous as he does it.

When Steve gets in to the helicarrier and settles down with his shield in his lap and spots the same magnet on the inner side, _‘see you there, punk’_

Natasha reads the note out of the corner of her eyes before Steve gets a chance to tuck it away inside his uniform.

“Well that’s disgustingly charming,” Natasha says.

“Oh, Barnes leave him another love note?” Sam asks.

“Sealed with a kiss magnet.”

“Right,” Steve says, “and here I thought we were supposed to be going over the mission and coming up with a plan, not giving me a hard time.”

“Multitasking,” Natasha reminds him, smoothly.


End file.
